A Knife to Remember

at being scooped up and removed from her bedroom. They felt it important to be on the scene when she got up in the morning, just in case she’d been sleeping with a can of cat food that she might open any second. The fact that this had never happened didn’t deter them from believing that it might.
    They muttered behind the closed door while Jane got dressed and they twined themselves around her ankles as she headed for the kitchen. She’d just plugged in the coffeemaker and started the can opener when there was a knock at the door. The cats howled protests at this interruption of her activities.
    Maisie was at the door. “Good morning,“ she chirped.
    “It’s only six-fifteen! How can you say that?“ Jane exclaimed.
    “Oh, I’ve been here for a half hour already. Is your son ready? I have some things he can do. Send him along.”
    Jane bellowed up the stairs for Mike and got him on his way, then got the cats fed and a cup of coffee inside herself before rousting out the other two kids. As soon as she heard movement upstairs, she took Willard out to his new dog run. He cowered and groaned in protest at first, but when he discovered that someone had tossed a half-eaten donut into the run, he settled in as if it were a home away from home.
    Todd accepted the inevitable and went off to school without much fight. Katie tried to claim a horrific case of cramps, cramps that might well go down in medical history, but decided she didn’t feel that bad when Jane made clear that staying home from school would mean staying in her own bedroom, which faced the front of the house, all day. Jane went back outside to drag Willard back indoors while Katie was reluctantly getting ready for school.
    When she had her car pools done, Jane returned to the house, put on a minimum of makeup, brown corduroy slacks, and a peach-colored sweatshirt before strolling into the backyard. Shelley was sitting on a lawn chair next to Maisie. They’d situated themselves next to a snack spread of epic proportions.
    “Help yourself,“ Maisie offered as Jane goggled at the long plywood table and the coolers beneath it.
    There were drinks of every description: milk, buttermilk, skim milk, orange juice, pineapple juice, apple juice, coffee, cocoa, a dozen kinds of tea in bags. There were donuts and fruit bars, little plastic bags of sunflower seeds and peanuts and candy bars. She counted six kinds of chips and four kinds of bread besides bagels, donuts, and sweet rolls. There were fresh fruits and vegetable crudités, cookies, cheeses, spreads, dips, and all the makings for every kind of sandwich imaginable.
    “There’s enough food here for a hundred starving people,“ Jane said in wonder. Her stomach growled.
    “That’s about what we’ve got today,“ Maisie said. “Dig in. You can’t make a dent.“
    “Is this normal?“ Shelley asked. “All this food?”
    Maisie nodded. “It’s one of the best things about the job. The food. You should have seen breakfast.“
    “You mean this isn’t breakfast?“ Jane asked, biting into a sweet roll.
    “No, the caterers’ truck just left. Breakfast was a hot meal for everybody a couple hours ago. I’d weigh three hundred pounds if I worked very often.”
    They chatted with Maisie about her job and discovered that she was a military wife and an actor’s daughter. She had combined the two with her nursing degree and had worked on many movie sets over the years as she followed her husband’s postings. “Fortunately he was assigned to desk workin L.A. several times back when nearly everything was done in the studio. I worked a lot then,“ she said. “And now that so much work is being done on location, the number of jobs elsewhere in the country is increasing.“
    “You mean you live here in Chicago?“ Jane asked. “Is anybody else local?“
    “Oh, yes. Quite a few. Transportation, extras casting, all the extras, catering, craft services,“ she said, rattling off individuals by their jobs instead of names. “All local. Even Jake there is local now.“
    “Who’s Jake?”
    Maisie popped a donut into her mouth to free a hand and pointed to a tall man in his early forties who was leaning against a piece of fake building, obscuring their view of the set. He had shoulder-length maroon-red hair. As they looked at him, he made some semaphore-like gestures to somebody with his arms, then turned toward them as if he’d sensed their gazes. He was very fair-skinned, with lean, distinctive